PINGHE at London Fashion Week 2014

As another season dawned so did another fashion week. London was brimming with fashion bloggers, models and designers all tottering around looking to get scope on the latest trends, collections, and of course the best pick of the goodie bags.

Numerous high profiled talent was showcased down at Somerset house, however if you wanted to seek the emerging and rising the best place to head was the Freemasons Hall, where Fashion Scout exhibited the finest of the fashion industries current risers.

PINGHE, the ready to wear fashion label designed by Ping He (see what she did there?) is currently rising within the fashion realm; with this only being her third full collection, she already has a glittering clientele list that includes Poppy Delevigne, Mary Chartenis and Laura Whitmore. Looking into her past there is no doubt that Ping has certainly worked like a beaver to get to where she is today. Starting at a young age, when most were either doing paper rounds or waitressing, Ping worked as a window designer for a top end bridal boutique. When she moved on to study she received a first class honours for her graduate collection, and came top of the class whilst studying for her masters at Nottingham Trent University. Her artistic talent was then honed in and stretched whilst she worked at Alexander McQueen, moving onto her own label which was pushed by Harvey Nichols, where amongst the lavish handbags and exorbitantly priced wines you can browse her collections.

There is also method to her design, answering all women’s prays and deriving her signature style from her love of architecture, meaning structured silhouettes which will flatter and shape beyond belief. Not only this, Ping takes on contradictory concepts. Think soft and strong, elegant and powerful, subtle yet obvious, this is all found within Pings collection, bringing the prospective client into a ‘but what is the meaning of life’ state of mind, there is so much depth to it all. It’s like sitting in a philosophy class, except you’re not, you’re at a fashion show staring at clothes.

The show itself emulates her ambition for the new collection, which was set to ‘create peace’, guessing amongst a world that is constantly moving and evolving. The show is backed by a slow live drum beat, which the models slowly walk down the catwalk to. Slowly doesn’t even do justice to how these models walked, it was as if you were watching them in slow motion. One may have actually been floating. Against the back drop of the Freemasons Hall with its high ceiling and art deco interior it was evocatively dramatic and emotive, it’s just a shame that the clothes didn’t really reflect this ambience that had been created.

There were the signature PINGHE traits within the pieces, the structure, the depth, and the contrasting factors. However the PINGHE traits were also quite literally within the pieces, as the logo had been tagged all over the majority of the garments, repeatedly. It adorned the structured dresses, skirts and jackets detracting attention from the beauty of the shape and structure. Looking away from this aspect, the collection does hold some stand out pieces, cream wedged high top trainers with gold panelling which will no doubt be cottoned onto and duplicated by high street chains, and a sumptuous collection of materials such as leather, bouffant lace, shearling and transparent PVC (the latter wasn’t the greatest out of the selection, however very for our current weather, just make sure you wear your party knickers, no Bridget Jones undies for this gauzy gear).

Putting the tagging aside the collection was striking and thought provoking. The collection will most certainly prosper internationally and with this just being the beginning it will be intriguing to see where Ping goes from here. (Applause please for making no puns involving the word ‘ping’)